THE Atlantic Salmon Federation and Trout Unlimited filed a lawsuit Thursday in Washington, D.C., to force the federal government to immediately protect Maine’s wild Atlantic salmon under the Endangered Species Act.

For both groups the lawsuit represents a last resort to save the United States’ remaining wild Atlantic salmon runs from extinction.

“The price of further delay is extinction,” said Bill Taylor, President of ASF. “Despite increased conservation efforts by the state of Maine, the number of wild salmon returning to their home rivers has dropped another 80 percent this decade. If this trend is not stopped, these runs will soon be gone forever.”

Historically, an estimated 500,000 Atlantic salmon spawned in New England Rivers each year. In 1998, an estimated 60 to 120 wild salmon returned to spawn in seven Maine rivers.

To native Americans and colonial settlers, the importance of Atlantic salmon as a food source rivaled that of the cod in coastal communities from Connecticut to Maine. Over the past 200 years, dams, industrial pollution and overfishing combined to eliminate salmon from most New England Rivers, leaving just a few remnant populations in Maine.

By any reasonable interpretation of the law, Atlantic salmon should be listed under the Endangered Species Act. The runs in Washington state are nowhere near as precarious as the Atlantic salmon, yet this year, there were five species of Pacific salmon placed on the Endangered List, affecting millions of people in the Pacific Northwest.

Yet the State of Maine remains vehemently opposed to a listing and clings to the position that there are no wild salmon remaining in the rivers. Basically, the states industries and politicians fear an economic disaster if the salmon is placed on the Endangered Species List, for which there is no historical basis or evidence.

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INCREASED evidence on the scope of PCB contamination in the Hudson River has led the federal authorities to issue a warning that eating fish from the upper Hudson River increases the risk of cancer to unacceptable levels. The finding, released last week by the Environmental Protection Agency, said the risk of cancer and other health problems would continue above acceptable levels for decades unless the river is cleaned up.

The EPA is deciding whether to order a dredging of the upper Hudson, a 40-mile stretch from Albany to Hudson Falls.

General Electric, which could be forced to spend billions of dollars to clean up the PCBs it released into the river decades ago, has questioned the need for dredging. A spokesman for GE said there is no evidence that PCBs in the Hudson pose a risk to people or wildlife.

The guy who said that should be put on a daily diet of Hudson River striped bass for about six months.

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The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has warned that the extensive fishing with dynamite by Albanian fishermen poses a serious threat to the country’s environment, not to mention the angler lighting the fuse.